Woman using virtual reality in a data center.
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Some of the nation’s largest tech companies have announced efforts to train their staff to avoid job losses caused by artificial intelligence, while also working to perfect the technology that could eliminate millions of those jobs.
It is fair to ask, however: what should college students and prospective students make of this, weighing their options and the potential time and financial expenditures?
The news this spring was encouraging for people looking to reinvent their careers to land middle-class jobs and a chance at economic security.
“Tech giants hatch plan for AI job losses: train 95 million people in 10 years,” it reads A recent headlineThe JOBsNews story details plans by a group that includes Google, IBM, Intel and Microsoft to help people who have lost or are about to lose their jobs.
There are two sides to this: learning about AI and other technologies, and learning with those technologies. Online learning opportunities abound, as anyone who has turned to YouTube for instruction on cooking, car repair, programming, or a hundred other activities knows.
Big companies are also pitching in to help students understand the expanding field of artificial intelligence. For example, on its SkillsBuild learning portal, IBM is offering a free credential in AI basics in a 10-hour online training program called Fundamentals of AI.
Amazon, for its part, created the Fundamentals of generative AI series, whose technological author is David Gewirtz calls “an all-you-can-eat buffet of really cool and interesting stuff to learn and see.”
While no one knows how many jobs will be lost (or created) due to AI, it is already clear that AI, in addition to being a great learning topic, will make it cheaper and more convenient to upskill and prepare for the future. AI will also be ubiquitous. Most major computing applications now have an AI assistant. Understanding how to use them and interpreting what they share will help leverage human capability in our interaction with machines.
MIT Economics Professor David Autor is optimistic, writing At Noema, we shouldn’t worry about having enough jobs.
“We are not running out of jobs,” Autor said. “And in fact, the entire Western world right now is either fully employed or overemployed. And even during the whole area of the information revolution, we are not running out of jobs. It is not the number that matters.”
Author, co-director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, said in an interview with the Lumina Foundation that AI can help leverage expertise so workers can perform higher-value work.
“I’m not optimistic about that. There will be real dislocations and displacements,” he says. “But there is more upside and potential than with previous technology. AI will redefine the value and nature of human expertise. Expertise has a higher market value if it is necessary to achieve a goal and relatively scarce.”
Mentoring is a promising area for AI, as is interactive learning through simulations of work environments. For example, pilots have long benefited from simulator training, and now AI is extending simulators for other skills on virtual reality platforms. One notable example: an AI-powered simulator laparoscopic simulator The aim of the project is to teach surgeons to work inside the body with long instruments that are introduced through small incisions. During training, students receive immediate feedback from the artificial intelligence system, which has itself been trained using the movements of the experts.
Where does higher education fit into all this? Many of those seeking to develop their skills online could be forgiven for feeling underserved, left to their own devices to explore the options and competing benefits of online learning. Yes, there is a wealth of free training online, just as there has always been a wealth of knowledge in libraries. But learning requires more than mere access to information, and higher education can fill that gap. It has a natural role in presenting, explaining and documenting learning, not just curating online resources. It adds value through quality instruction, broad-based learning and partnerships with employers. Ideally, online learning tools will increasingly be integrated into longer learning paths that, if the learner wants them, lead to university degrees.
Today’s universities face immense challenges, to be sure, but AI also presents them with a dual opportunity: They can use AI systems to train people for good jobs more quickly and at lower cost, and they can develop instruction on AI itself across all majors and disciplines.
Frankly, given the inexorable progress of AI, this is a path they must take. The dizzying pace of change demands that schools experiment, adapt and collaborate like never before.
We may also need to tailor our advice to students of all ages and levels. The new message? Improve skills and maintain them. In today’s world, frequently updating skills is the only way to stay ahead.
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